Surfactant adhesive composition

ABSTRACT

Provided herein is a surfactant adhesive protein comprising an amphiphilic peptide at the carbon or amine terminal of the protein, enabling homogeneous dispersion of several materials in various solvents and coating of the homogeneously dispersed particles on a hydrophilic or hydrophobic surface, particularly the homogeneous dispersion of hydrophilic or hydrophobic particles in a hydrophobic or hydrophilic solvent on the basis of strong adhesive strength of a mussel adhesive protein; the surface adhesive protein can be used as a surface coating agent requiring antibacterial or antiviral functions as well as a cosmetic product or an ink.

FIELD OF INVENTION

The present invention relates to a biofunctional adhesive with surfactant activity, and a method of preparing said biofunctional adhesive surfactant. In details, the present invention related to an adhesive composition, comprising amphiphilic peptide recombinantly incorporated into the molecular backbone of an adhesive protein. Said adhesive protein of the present invention is an adhesive protein having antimicrobial, antiviral or anti-atopic peptide recombinantly incorporated into C-terminal or N-terminal of said adhesive protein.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

A surfactant is the chemical compound composed of hydrophilic domain and hydrophobic domain in the same molecule, and is used in most industries including advanced industry such as medicine, nanomaterial and fine chemicals. A lot of surfactants are used in commodities.

A surfactant reducing interfacial tension offers excellent detergent, dispersion, emulsification, solubilizing agent, and antimicrobial effect and is used in industrial detergent as well as household detergent. U.S. Pat. No. 6,362,145 discloses a method of manufacturing excellent detergent comprising SLES (sodium lauryl ether sulfate). U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,368,756 and 5,230,823 describe a method of manufacturing ionic surfactant, for example, cationic quaternary ammonium based surfactant.

These surfactants have small molecular weight enough to absorb transdermally when contacted with skin. Some petroleum-based sulfate surfactants were not excreted or eliminated from the body but accumulated in the human body, causing skin cancer or atopic symptoms. Especially, many reports of side effect related to atopic dermatitis or other symptoms caused by anionic surfactant SLS (sodium lauryl sulfate), sodium lauryl ether sulfate (SLES) and ammonium lauryl Sulfate (ALS) have been made continuously.

Naturally occurring surfactants, such as lecithin, extracted from plants have been developed. For example, Korean patent publication No. 10-2013-0027908 discloses a method of manufacturing surfactant composition comprising mung bean saponin and alkyl glucoside sulfonate, a mild detergent and little sensitive to skin. The natural surfactants are human body- or environment-friendly, but its high cost structure prohibits extensive industrial applications.

The present invention discloses a method of manufacturing adhesive protein having surfactant activity in order to address the issues described above and to provide human body- and environment-friendly surfactant protein. In one embodiment of the present invention, provided is a surfactant adhesive protein whose molecular backbone is amphiphilic, without any special equipment or treatment, simply used as an additive. Furthermore, the surfactant adhesive can be used as water-soluble or oil-soluble coating material.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is designed to address the issues described above. According to one embodiment of the present invention, the objective of the invention is to provide interfacially active adhesive protein, i.e. surfactant adhesive protein, based material or coating composition with excellent affinity to hydrophilic or lyophilic surface. Furthermore, another objective of the invention is to develop an adhesive protein fused with a variety of functional peptides such as antimicrobial, anti-atopic, antiviral peptide fused at C-terminus or N-terminus of said adhesive protein, and a coating or adhesive composition comprising the same. The functional peptide of the present invention refers to any peptide composed of three or more amino acid residues with physiological function such as antimicrobial, anticancer, anti-immune, antiviral, anti-atopic, anti-thrombotic activity. According to another embodiment of the present invention, another objective of the invention is to provide a simple coating method by adjusting of the concentration of mussel adhesive protein, and coating composition wherein said coating composition is environment-friendly coating materials without use of organic solvent by providing water-soluble or oil-soluble, and endurable coating composition.

Another objective of the present invention is to provide human body friendly surfactant materials for various commodity applications such as cosmetics.

It should be obviously understood that special advantages and novel features of the present invention by drawings and its related illustrated embodiments in the present invention.

The present invention relates to amphiphilic adhesive protein having high affinity to water-soluble or oil-soluble solvent and provides said adhesive protein based adhesive or coating composition.

The present invention further provides an adhesive protein with excellent surfactant activity by recombinantly incorporating amphiphilic peptide into C-terminus or N-terminus of an adhesive protein.

According to one embodiment of the present invention, provided is an interfacially active adhesive protein with antimicrobial activity by incorporating amphiphilic peptide into antimicrobial adhesive protein which is finely and stably dispersed in silicone oil or olive oil used for cosmetic purpose.

The present invention provides a surfactant adhesive protein having amphiphilic properties as a surface active agent. The surface active agent in the present invention is composed of adhesive protein functionalized with naturally occurring or synthetically designed amphiphilic peptides, wherein the basic structure of the adhesive protein has formula (X-Y-A) or (X-A-Y), wherein X is an domain containing hydrophobic peptide, Y is an domain containing hydrophilic peptide, and A is an amphiphilic peptide containing domain.

Any suitable adhesive protein may be used as the surfactant adhesive materials of the present invention.

The adhesive protein used in the present invention includes, but not limited to, a self-adhesive protein. Self-adhesive protein possesses adhesiveness inherently or by chemical modification. One example of commerically available said self-adhesive protein includes, but not limited to a mussel-derived recombinant adhesive protein, MAPTrix™ marketed by Kollodis BioSciences Inc. (North Augusta, Mass.). Another example of said self-adhesive protein through chemical modification is an acrylated adhesive protein. For example, acrylated collagen or mussel adhesive protein is self-adhesive. One embodiment of the present invention provides a surfactant adhesive protein comprising mussel adhesive protein.

MAPTrix™ disclosed in the present invention is a recombinantly functionalized mussel adhesive protein. Y domain, the hydrophilic peptide domain, in the present invention may comprises foot protein 5 (FP-5) selected from SEQ ID NO. 10, 11, 12 or 13, foot protein 3 (FP-3) selected from SEQ ID NO. 5, 6, 7 or 8, or foot protein 6 (FP-6) comprising SEQ ID NO. 14, wherein C-terminus, N-terminus or C- and N-terminus of Y domain is fused with domain X, selected from relatively hydrophobic mussel adhesive protein FP-1 (SEQ ID NO. 1), FP-2 (SEQ ID NO. 4), FP-4 (SEQ ID NO. 9) or its fragment. Preferably, said X domain may comprise FP-5 selected from amino acid sequences SEQ ID NO. 10, 11, 12 or 13 and said Y domain may comprise FP-1 selected from amino acid sequences SEQ ID NO. 1, 2 or 3. A domain in the present invention is necessary for said fused mussel adhesive protein to have surface-active function by maximizing a contact area in various solvents or surfaces.

The amphiphilic peptide described above may be recombinantly incorporated into C-, N-terminus, or both N- and C-termini of mussel adhesive protein, or between one domain and another domain of fused mussel adhesive protein. For example, any amphiphilic peptide can be recombinantly incorporated into between FP-1 and FP-5 of a fused protein FP-151 (FP-5 domain fused with FP1). In addition, a bioactive peptide such as antimicrobial or anti-viral peptide may be incorporated into both N- and C-terminus or between domains of a fused protein. For example, such bioactive peptide may include Magainin, alpha-helical 23-amino acid peptide forming isolated from the skin of the African clawed frog Xenopus laevis or Dermaseptin antimicrobial peptide. Furthermore, human defensins, cathelicidin LL-37, histatin antimicrobial peptide may be included but not limited to such antimicrobial peptide. According to a preferable embodiment of the present invention, the fusion protein may be used, but not limited to, FP-151 having amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NOs. 15-17, FP-131 having amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO. 18, or FP-251 having amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO. 19.

The present invention provides an amphiphilic peptide fused with said adhesive protein wherein said amphiphilic peptide is naturally occurring or synthetically designed. Generally, an amphiphilic peptide has good solubility in both hydrophilic and hydrophobic solvent. Any amphiphilic peptide comprising alternating pattern of hydrophobic-hydrophilic amino acid or hydrophobic-hydrophilic block amino acid may be used in the present invention. Preferably, said amphiphilic peptide incorporated into said adhesive protein may be selected from synthetically designed peptides. More preferably, said amphiphilic peptide may be selected from ARARADADARARADAD (SEQ ID NO. 20), EAEAKAKAEAEAKAKA (SEQ ID NO. 21), QQRFQWQFEQQ (SEQ ID NO. 22), AEAEAKAK (SEQ ID NO. 23), DPHHHWYHMHQH (SEQ ID NO. 24), HNWYHWWMPHNT (SEQ ID NO. 25), HWKHPWGAWDTL (SEQ ID NO. 26), HWSAWWIRSNQS (SEQ ID NO. 27), DDWSHWWRAWNG (SEQ ID NO. 28), YTSPWWLAWYDP (SEQ ID NO. 29), AWWEAFIPNSIT (SEQ ID NO. 30) and KLWKKWAKKWLKLWKA (SEQ ID NO. 31).

Biofunctional adhesives provided in the present invention may include anti-viral or antimicrobial peptide. Antimicrobial or antiviral surfactant adhesives may include naturally occurring or synthetically designed peptide. Preferably, the peptide may be selected from antimicrobial peptide FALALKALKKL (SEQ ID NO. 32), ILRWPWWPWRRK (SEQ ID NO. 33), AKRHHGYKRKFH (SEQ ID NO. 34), or antiviral peptide RRWWCRC (SEQ ID NO. 35).

In order to provide adhesive protein with good surfactant activity in a wide variety of solvents, provided is an antimicrobial adhesive protein based surfactant wherein two different amphiphilic peptides are incorporated into C-terminus and N-terminus of said antimicrobial adhesive protein, respectively. A broad range of interfacially active coating composition is provided in the present invention wherein said interfacially active coating composition comprises adhesive protein having one amphiphilic peptide EAEAKAKAEAEAKAKA (SEQ ID NO. 21) fused at the N-terminus, and another amphiphilic peptide QQRFQWQFEQQ (SEQ ID NO. 22) fused at C-terminus of said adhesive protein.

The tyrosine residues in the fused mussel adhesive protein may be modified to DOPA (3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine), further oxidative conversion to DOPA-quinone, and the modified forms of DOPA and DOPA-quinone are known to play an important role in surface adhesion. Chemical modification of recombinant mussel adhesive protein can be conducted with tyrosinase from mushroom, catalyzing such modification. The surfactant mussel adhesive protein chemically modified with tyrosinase may disperse, finely and stably, a variety of materials including carbon nanotube, metals, plastics, glass, ceramics in hydrophilic or hydrophobic solvent.

The concentration of coating composition based on surfactant adhesive protein can be adjusted depending on the concentration of amphiphilic peptide fused with said adhesive protein. Preferably, the concentration of surfactant adhesive protein based coating composition is 0.1 to 10% (wt/wt), more preferably, 0.1 to 3% (wt/wt).

In one embodiment of the present invention, provided is solution of mica particles treated with surfactant adhesive protein were finely dispersed in silicone oil and the present inventors confirmed the adhesiveness of surfactant adhesive protein by immobilizing surfactant adhesive protein treated-mica particles which were dispersed in silicon oil to wet surface.

Advantageous Effects

The present invention of adhesive protein with surface active characteristics may enables fine dispersion of various materials in a variety of solvents, and the finely dispersed particles may be coated to hydrophilic or hydrophobic surface. Particularly, mussel adhesive protein with strong adhesion in the present invention enables fine dispersion of hydrophilic or hydrophobic particles in hydrophobic or hydrophilic solvent, the invention can be applied to cosmetics, inks or functional surface coating agent requiring antimicrobial or antiviral activity.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

FIG. 1 illustrates mica particles stably and finely dispersed by interfacially active adhesive protein in the mixture of water and silicone oil, demonstrating stable and finely dispersed phase in the mixture of water/silicone oil solution at least five hours. (A) indicates the solution of water and oil at the time of mixture, (B) indicates the solution after one hour, and (C) indicates the solution after five hours.

FIG. 2 illustrates the coatability test results of mica particles dispersed in silicone oil to wet surface. When surfactant adhesive protein treated mica particles were dispersed in silicone oil, the mica particles coated with silicone oil showed excellent adhesiveness to wet surface by surface-active effect.

EXAMPLES

The following examples are provided to illustrate desirable embodiment purpose in the present invention, and the exemplified embodiments are illustrative only and do not limit the scope of the invention. As exemplified in the following embodiment, it is very clear that functionally same products, composition and methods are included in the present invention.

Example 1. Construction of Vector for Interfacially Active Mussel Adhesive Protein

To prepare mussel adhesive protein fused with amphiphilic peptide, we design a genetic sequence to incorporate typical amphiphilic peptide at C terminus or N-terminus of mussel adhesive protein, and the genetic sequence was synthesized by Cosmogentec Co. Ltd. (Seoul, Korea). The constructed vector was transformed into E. coli BL21 (DE3), and the fused amphiphilic peptides were listed in Table 1.

TABLE 1 Fusion site Fusion Amphiphilic at mussel peptide Peptide Sequence adhesive protein A ARARADADARARADAD C terminus (SEQ ID NO. 20) B EAEAKAKAEAEAKAKA N terminus (SEQ ID NO. 21) C HWKHPWGAWDTL C terminus (SEQ ID NO. 22)

Example 2. Preparation of Surfactant Mussel Adhesive Protein

2.1. Culturing of E. coli BL21(DE3)

E. coli BL21 (DE) was cultured in LB media (5 g/liter yeast extract, 10 g/liter Tryptone and 10 g/liter NaCl), and IPTG was added to a final concentration of 1 mM when the optical density of the culture solution was 0.6 at 600 nm in order to induce expression of recombinantly antimicrobial peptide fused mussel adhesive protein. The E. coil BL21 (DE) culture was centrifuged at 13,000 rpm for 4 to 10 minutes to obtain the cell pellet, and this was stored at −80° C.

2.2. Confirmation of Surfactant Mussel Adhesive Protein Expression

The cell pellet was resuspended in 100 μg of SDS-PAGE buffer (0.5 M Tris-HCl, pH 6.8, 10% glycerol, 5% SDS, 5% (3-mercaptoethanol, 0.25% bromophenol blue), denatured by boiling at 100° C. for 5 minutes. For SDS-PAGE analysis, the samples were electrophoresed on a 15% SDS-polyacylamide gel and then the protein bands detected using Coomassie blue staining,

2.3. Purification of Surfactant Mussel Adhesive Protein

The cell pellets from EXAMPLE 2.1 was stirred with lysis buffer comprising 2.4 g/L Sodium phosphate monobasic, 5.6 g/L Sodium phosphate dibasic, 10 mM EDTA and 1% Triton X-100, and were broken using high pressure homogenizer. The lysates were centrifuged by centrifugal filter units as 9,000 rpm for 20 minutes and insoluble protein complex containing mussel adhesive protein was obtained. Surfactant adhesive protein eluted from the insoluble complex at an acetic acid concentration of 25 (v/v) % was centrifuged under the same conditions (9,000 rpm for 20 minutes) to gain supernatant. The obtained supernatant was centrifuged under the same conditions (9,000 rpm for 20 minutes) at pH 12.8 by adding 10N NaOH. The supernatant was neutralized at pH 6˜7 using acetic acid and then centrifuged under the same conditions to take precipitated mussel adhesive protein. The precipitate was dissolved in distilled water, undergoing freezing-dried to get lyophilized mussel adhesive protein with 90% purity.

Example 3. Treatment of Tyrosinase to the Surfactant Adhesive Protein

The lyophilized surfactant mussel adhesive protein was dissolved to a concentration of 1 mg/mL in 0.1M acetate buffer containing 20 mM ascorbic acid and 20 mM sodium borate and the surfactant adhesive protein solution then saturated with oxygen by adding oxygen gas to the solution for 30 minutes. Then after the addition of 40˜1 μg of tyrosinase per antimicrobial adhesive protein, preferably 40˜1 μg per adhesive protein, it was shaken for one hour under the oxygen condition. After one hour, the chemical modification reaction was terminated by adding 5% acetic acid to the solution. The terminated surfactant adhesive protein solution underwent freezing dry to obtain lyophilized powder. Through this process, the tyrosine residues of the adhesive proteins were modified to DOPA. After the dialysis of the solution, acrylation and the degree of acrylation of protein were determined with NMR or spectroscopic analysis.

Example 4. Dispersibility Test of Surfactant Protein

Coating solution of surfactant mussel adhesive protein obtained from EXAMPLE 2 was prepared to measure its dispersibility.

The surfactant coating solution was composed of surfactant adhesive protein dissolved to a concentration of 10 to 0.01 mg/mL in distilled water. 2 wt % of Mica particles was added to the surfactant coating solution, and 1 mL of silicone oil was added to the surfactant coating solution. As shown in FIG. 1A, when silicone oil was added to the surfactant coating solution, two phases are separated clearly. Two solutions were mixed using vortex mixer, and mixture and dispersion status of two solutions was checked after 1 and 5 hours. No phase separation of the mixture solution was confirmed after 1 and 5 hours later. Mica particles were finely dispersed and no precipitation of the mica particles was observed, confirming the dispersed phase was stabilized.

Example 5. Coatability Test with Surfactant Adhesive Protein

0.1 g of mica particles was added to 1 mg, 10 mg and 20 mg of surfactant adhesive protein dissolved in solution, respectively and incubated for 20 minutes for coating. The surfactant adhesive protein coated mica particles were isolated using manure paper and finely dispersed in 1 mL of silicone oil in petri dish. The mica particles finely dispersed silicone oil was added to wet surface coating. FIG. 2A indicated surface coating using surfactant adhesive protein, non-tyrosinase treatment, and FIG. 2B indicated the coating using said adhesive protein was tyrosinase-treated. In FIG. 2A, 1A indicated the mica coated with 1 mg of surfactant adhesive protein, 2A with 10 mg and 3A with 20 mg of surfactant adhesive protein, respectively.

Cotability test was conducted by adding 100 mL of water to mica-coated surface and moving petri dish up and down to exert external stress to coated surface. As shown in FIG. 2B, 3B indicates stable coating, 2B indicates residual coated particles are rare, but 1B indicates little residual coated particles. Mica particles coated with surfactant adhesive protein without tyrosinase modification were washed out regardless of the amount of surfactant adhesive protein. 

1. A surfactant adhesive protein comprising an amphiphilic peptide and an adhesive protein wherein the amphiphilic peptide is incorporated into the adhesive protein.
 2. The surfactant adhesive protein according to claim 1, wherein said adhesive protein is derived from a mussel adhesive protein.
 3. The surfactant adhesive protein according to claim 2, wherein said mussel adhesive protein is selected from the group consisting of FP-1 comprising an amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NOs. 1-3, FP-2 comprising the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO. 4, FP-3 comprising an amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NOs. 5-8, FP-4 comprising the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO. 9, FP-5 comprising an amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NOs. 10-13, FP-6 comprising the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO. 14, FP-151 comprising an amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NOs. 15-17, FP-131 comprising the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO. 18 and FP-251 comprising the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO.
 19. 4. The surfactant adhesive protein according to claim 1, wherein said amphiphilic peptide is incorporated into one or more site selected from the group consisting of the C-terminus and N-terminus of said adhesive protein.
 5. The surfactant adhesive protein according to claim 1, wherein said amphiphilic peptide comprises an alternating hydrophobic amino acid-hydrophilic amino acid or a hydrophobic amino acid-block-hydrophilic amino acid.
 6. The surfactant adhesive protein according to claim 1, wherein said amphiphilic peptide is selected from the group consisting of ARARADADARARADAD (SEQ ID NO. 20), EAEAKAKAEAEAKAKA (SEQ ID NO. 21), QQRFQWQFEQQ (SEQ ID NO. 22), AEAEAKAK (SEQ ID NO. 23), DPHHHWYHMHQH (SEQ ID NO. 24), HNWYHWWMPHNT (SEQ ID NO. 25), HWKHPWGAWDTL (SEQ ID NO. 26), HWSAWWIRSNQS (SEQ ID NO. 27), DDWSHWWRAWNG (SEQ ID NO. 28), YTSPWWLAWYDP (SEQ ID NO. 29), AWWEAFIPNSIT (SEQ ID NO. 30) and KLWKKWAKKWLKLWKA (SEQ ID NO. 31).
 7. The surfactant adhesive protein according to claim 1, wherein said surfactant adhesive protein is fused with a biofunctional peptide.
 8. The surfactant adhesive protein according to claim 7, wherein said biofunctional peptide is selected from the group consisting of an antimicrobial peptide, an antiviral peptide, an anticancer peptide, an anti-immune peptide, an anti-atopic peptide and an antithrombotic peptide.
 9. The surfactant adhesive protein according to claim 8, wherein said anticancer peptide is composed of an amino acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs. 32-34.
 10. The surfactant adhesive protein according to claim 8, wherein said antiviral peptide is composed of the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO.
 35. 11. The surfactant adhesive protein of claim 1, wherein tyrosine residues among the amino acid residues of the adhesive protein is chemically modified to form DOPA (3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine).
 12. The surfactant adhesive protein of claim 11, wherein said DOPA is further chemically modified to convert to DOPA-quinone.
 13. The surfactant adhesive protein of claim 11, wherein said chemical modification is conducted by tyrosinase.
 14. A silicone oil comprising the surfactant adhesive protein according to claim 1 and mica particles, finely dispersed in a hydrophilic solvent.
 15. The silicone oil according to claim 14, wherein said hydrophilic solvent is water or a water-containing solvent. 